Could Autonomous Pace Cars Be Coming Soon To Auto Racing?

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - JULY 30: The safety car leads Sebastian Vettel of Germany driving the (5) Scuderia Ferrari SF70H and Kimi Raikkonen of Finland driving the (7) Scuderia Ferrari SF70H on track during the Formula One Grand Prix of Hungary at Hungaroring on July 30, 2017 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Driverless cars could be coming to auto racing, but star drivers in the near future probably won’t have to worry.

Autonomous technology is something that first could be implemented in the pace car or safety car, which limits the speed of the competing cars on the track for safety reasons caused by an accident, debris or weather.

And Formula 1 is a place where the driverless safety car could happen.

“Let me give you an example, but it is not the only one: we have spoken about an unmanned safety car,” Marcin Budkowski, the head of the FIA’s F1 technical department, told Autosport.

“It would promote a technology about which there is a bit of scepticism and, instead, it could be shown that it works.

“The safety car driver would no longer be essential, because it would leave the controls to the computer.

“But we must be aware of the attraction of [F1] race cars without drivers: the engineers would love it, but not the fans.

“But can this idea of having no F1 driver captivate millions around the world? Frankly I have doubts.

“However, using the motorsport platform to promote to the public new technologies, like an unmanned safety car, or events like Roborace, can be fantastic in exploring the possibility of new solutions.”

“One area where collaboration could happen is with autonomous vehicles, where it is possible to forecast an autonomous pace car in world motorsport,” FIA World Endurance Championship CEO Gerard Neveu said last year. “There already exists technological capability within the motorsport supply chain, which could support the real-world testing schedules required by OEMs investing in this area. What’s more, autonomous vehicles would make engineers the heroes of race wins. This is good for motorsport, as it must appeal to the next generation of designers and skilled technicians.”

And in April, NASCAR K&N Pro Series driver Julia Landauer said of automated tech that it could be something for NASCAR as well.

“The pace car goes around and leads the field around for the start of a race and normally has a driver. But what about if we made that an autonomous experience or autonomous car?” she said at the SAE World Congress Experience in Detroit. “Or what if they had an autonomous car with a guest passenger? And initially after the drivers are introduced to the fans, they have trucks that take them around the racetrack to be able to wave to all the fans. Maybe those trucks could be autonomous trucks, right?”

On the subject of driverless race cars, the driver smiled.

“A lot of people…have asked, ‘OK, well what about autonomous race cars? Wouldn’t that be so exciting to watch 40 cars go around racing each other with no drivers?’ And personally, I don’t want to see that,” she said. “Then my career will come to a quick end.”

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About Diamond Leung

Diamond is responsible for SportTechie’s editorial vision and execution. Before joining SportTechie in August 2016, he worked as the Golden State Warriors beat writer for the Bay Area News Group and covered both their NBA championship and 73-win seasons. He previously covered Michigan State for MLive.com, college basketball for ESPN.com and the Los Angeles Dodgers for The Press-Enterprise. He lives in New York City and is a native of San Francisco.
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